Too bad the Americans are our friends and Osama is not. But I actually prefer it that way around. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
Well, that was sad, sure. But it was about revenge.
So you're arguing that it would similarly be legitimate for the Afghani populace to inflict casualties inside America, after all it's about revenge. Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
Or really, the queation does not make sense. This is international relations so the concept "legitimate" does not exist, except as a propaganda tool. Which is why having the UN on your side is a good thing. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
(...)
Aside of being morally questionable, your thinking is also rather inaccurate. People have a sense of justice. If wars are fought without legitimacy that has consequences for how people react. Like, say, the infractions against their sense of justice might lead them to become insurgents and start blowing stuff up.
On the question of LEGITIMACY:
But what about the UN mandate? Doesn't a UN mandate count for anything? Doesn't it confer legitimacy, say on the intervention by member nations of NATO in Afghanistan? Let us not forget that it was the govt in Kabul that sought that intervention.
When the US invaded Afghanistan to get back at the Taleban, Al-Qaeda and at every possible old and young Afghan leader, to me quite frankly, their act was not justifiable -- it was not a reason for invasion. I personally was opposed to the outright destruction of Afghanistan being perpetuated cowboy-like by America without so much as a thought for the civilians, children who would get caught in the crossfire. If NATO, which unfortunately counts the United States as one of its major members, fails in Afghanistan (and it may fail), in my opinion it will largely be on account of the conduct of the Afghanistan war that was waged from the time the United States invaded Afghanistan armed with the wrong purpose and deploying the wrong tactics, i.e., purely punitive measures, bomb and awe, destruction and revenge, etc.
However, once the Afghan govt obtained a UN mandate for the UN to intervene and NATO was appointed to execute that mission on behalf of the United Nations, that to me was conferring legitimacy on the said NATO intervention in Afghanistan, America notwithstading.
If, on the other hand, we cannot and don't want to accept that the particular UN mandate was legitimate in itself, then of course, that gives a totally different legitimacy color to the NATO member nations' intervention in Afghanistan. Sadly, this is where I differ with my highly-esteemed fellow 'diarists' -- either we accept a UN mandate as legitimate or not but we cannot accuse NATO of intervening in Afghanistan illegally. In that, we either support the United Nations or not. The UN is, in my humble opinion, one of the avenues we can take towards clarifying, or at the very least, towards helping sort out a political and sometimes moral dilemma that most nations and peoples face when the lives of millions of human beings are at stake.
If we believe we that our govts shouldn't or cannot trust the UN or should only support it halfway when the said intl body decides to confer a mission on an agency or another institution, on another nation or nations, groups of peoples, then I suppose we should be prepared to face more debacles in the future. At the moment, it is realistically the only international body that we can rightly call upon in the most legitimate manner to help nations resolve some of the most difficult political and security conflicts they face.
I accept that there is a strong chance that NATO might fail in Afghanistan and there is a plethora of reasons, beginning with lack of meaningful public support because of costs, moral dilemma, political ideologies, personal beliefs, and more, etc., etc., etc. Unfortunately, the United States has been on the ground much ahead of EU-NATO member nations, doing what they've always known best (harsh punitive measures, bomb and awe, destruction and revenge) so, if we all truly believe EU member nations are incapable of providing the necessary balance to slow down America's ardour for war and counterbalance the United States' supremacist doctrine, if we all believe these EU nations in NATO are not up to the task of reversing the tide of horror in Afghanistan, then I must agree with all of you, these EU member nations should pull out of Afghanistan illico and perhaps, Europeans should demand that their govts disband or withdraw NATO altogether immediately afterwards. (I believe in following up what a man, or woman for that matter, strongly believes with determined actions.)
Meanwhile, I think it is fair to ask those who are deeply concerned for Afghanistan to call on, nay, demand of the United Nations via their governments to apply international pressure on the government of Pres Hamid Karzai in Kabul and to require the Afghan govt to do more than what they are doing today in order to help alleviate very worried and concerned Europeans of their moral (and financial) burden and so that the European NGOs and military personnel stationed in Afghanistan can come back home soon!
For him it is OK, when NATO does not help Afghanis, but just kills the Taleban and he clearly justifies the invasion, not just the nation building part. Of course the NATO mission has other goals than those which Starvid stated.
And to you comment, I think one can be in a way critical to the UN without blasting it. Maybe an intervention can be argued as legal, if it has UN support, but that doesn't mean, that we can't think it is wrong, and we don't have to support it, just because it is legal. I haven't seen too much people here demanding all the govs and MPs which have voted in their respective countries for the NATO mission to go to jail. Der Amerikaner ist die Orchidee unter den MenschenVolker Pispers
Sorry, been busy in other threads and elsewhere -- haven't really checked this thread, part of the reason is it's become too long and tires my eyes scanning the posts.
Yes, I've just read some of his comments. I'd say his view on killing all the Taleban and never mind the rest was a bit extreme. To adopt that sort of strategy would be no more no less adopting the American way of doing things which was something I believe the majority here rejected outright -- me included and to think that my view on the matter may already be considered far too "rightish" for the sensitivities of most here (although I may be wrong.)
To set the record straight, it is my belief that every single decision, or at least the major ones to which the general public have direct access, made by any institution in the name of the citizens of a republic, a union or a federation of states, international or regional, national or local should be scrutinised and if warranted, criticised -- and this goes very much so for the UN. However, just to remind you, the tenor of my earlier post does pertain to the notion of not criticising the UN but rather to the legitimacy of the NATO intervention in Afghanistan.
